pappilon wrote:So... The Detweiller Plan lost its moral compass at the beginning not after generations. That is what I thought I remembered. TY

As far as I can tell, the Detweiler plan never had a moral compass. The morality of genetic engineering is an ongoing and very thorny debate, but I think we can all agree that "take over the universe while forcibly genetically engineering everyone across the board to be (our idea of) a Better Human" doesn't even come close to 'moral'.

JohnRoth wrote:Of course it had a moral compass. It's the one that points in the direction you want to go anyway.

Compasses are affected by magnetic fields.

Beowulf and the SEM are very magnetic.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

ldwechsler wrote:Aside from the infrequency of books in recent years, my biggest disappointment has been the lack of exceptionality shown by those in MAlign. We have seen a lot of so-called alpha line operatives who seem no brighter than average. We have been told there are some operatives who are absolutely deadly and have seen no evidence of it.

Harahap was presumably one of the better lines and yet he uses the same name everywhere, thereby giving himself away. Once his name hits the "wires," not only will a lot of planets know what he was really doing but some where there were no revolts or failed ones will connect him back.

These are supposed to be damned near supermen and women and yet they have done nothing much more than create a few science breakthroughs, none decisive.

Frankly, they are a disappointment. If this has been 500 years of experiments, they might be dumbest group of scientists anywhere.

Harahap is no Alpha-Line. He comes from a verge-planet with no economical pot to p*ss in and a sollie transstellar to take anything else away (as far as I remember), and he chose to become a member of the Solarian Gendarmerie, because it was the best game available for him. He's the dictionary picture of a mercenary with no loyalty at all regarding the Solarian League - and so he was an ideal candidate for the MAlign to recruit.

ldwechsler wrote:Someone had to plan the missions and it came from pretty deep into the onion. He worked with quite a few key people. He was not just 'winging' it. And they kept using Firebrand as a nickname just in case you didn't remember Harahap. They even kept it after he was captured by the Manticorans.

And we have seen so many others INCLUDING Detweilers. Has anyone seemed brilliant? Are they smarter than the Hemphill and Foraker and their people?

They just seem to be like people yet the freed slaves we've seen come across as being far smarter and more interesting. DuHavel seems smarter than any of them; JeremyX is described as the best shot anywhere. Paolo is descended from pleasure slaves yet is brilliant at electronics.

Frankly, the Malign comes across as a dud.

runsforcelery wrote:How many others have you really seen? I'm just asking because you really haven't seen all that many.

As for Harahap's resuse of variants on Firebrand, did it occur to you that the Alignment was just fine with that for a very good reason? The only people who know there was a dude named Firebrand running around lighting fires in Talbott for the Alignment (or, rather, for a passel of corrupt transstellars who have nothing to do with the completely fictitious "Alignment" which is clearly a product of Manticoran paranoia) happens to be the GA. No one else has any reason to associate the name "Firebrand" with the Alignment, but the Alignment has every reason to make the ties between the various Janus operational contacts as obvious as possible after the fact in order to point suspicion at the Manties for a widespread operation covering a vast volume of space. (And I don't think they really hoped to keep their involvement in Janus a secret where the GA is concerned, however hard they tried! )

If I failed to make that point sufficiently clear where Harahap's naming conventions were concerned, I apologize. It always seemed to me to be implicit in the fact that no one from the Alignment complained about it. (Of course, I was on the inside looking out, so it may have seemed more clearly implied to me than to others.) As far as other Alphas are concerned, Damien's buddy Rufino was pretty sharp, I thought, and Bardasano was no dummy (not too tiightly wrapped, but no dummy). Anisimovna played the President of Monica and the New Tuscany government like cheap violins and accomplished every one of the tasks she was set by her superiors. And then there's O'Hanrahan. And once Jack McBryde recognized the truth about the Alignment (and his own complicity), I thought he was pretty darned effective.

I will guarantee you that you've seen at least one Alpha who is positively brilliant and extremely deadly, although I will leave the aforesaid Alpha's identity a bit of a mystery for the moment. Be interesting to see if anyone can identify the person I'm thinking about.

Spreading genius out over centuries may lose it in the mire— Stretching a rubber band out a foot shrinks it. Over centuries may make it seemingly disappear to the naked eye.

Being able to accurately predict the weather for the following week is difficult. Predicting the weather for the next few centuries (within a sliver of a GA) is pure genius.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

Weird Harold wrote:3) Georgia had a bar-code removed from her tongue; Alpha lines don't have bar-codes and aren't used for deep-cover moles.

Not true. Second Torch Novel. They actually found one. There was a treecat working the emigration line and flagged a guy for further checking. It got lost in the shuffle then he popped up when he had a duplicate number.

AND the security guy that ratted out jack McBride's meeting with Anton and Victor's meeting to Anisimovna had a tattoo on his tongue too.

But yeah she buried that info very deeply at Smoking frog

In neither of those instances were the individuals actually alpha line, although the guy penetrating torch apparently had his bar code implanted as part of his cover. The point remains that bar codes were only for slaves.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.

Think about it. Everything he is doing fits with the MAlign plan and the future RF anti-slavery policies. He is the means to coopt the expected enemies and gain some of the GA's tech...

I've thought for a while that there's at least one MAlign mole on Smoking Frog, but Barregos is not all that likely. If he was one of them, then the Operation Janus attempt at a false flag operation seems to be, let's say, poorly conceived. In any case, we've never seen any of the Smoking Frog crew in any action more deadly than flying a desk.

Think about it. Everything he is doing fits with the MAlign plan and the future RF anti-slavery policies. He is the means to coopt the expected enemies and gain some of the GA's tech...

I've thought for a while that there's at least one MAlign mole on Smoking Frog, but Barregos is not all that likely. If he was one of them, then the Operation Janus attempt at a false flag operation seems to be, let's say, poorly conceived. In any case, we've never seen any of the Smoking Frog crew in any action more deadly than flying a desk.

Eh?? Rosak was a member of the Smoking Frog crew. He was present orchestrating the Mayan action at Torch which was certainly more deadly than flying a desk...

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.

My guess would be Victor, though he obviously would be a 'lost' Alpha line (from the MA's perspective). Even Honor had quite the internal dialog on how powerful and focused his mind was when she had her first opportunity to sample it.

Rosak would be a good call too, though, and wouldn't necessarily be a 'lost' alpha... the MA would be positively ecstatic with his contributions to the Maya sector independence run. OTOH, he did quite literally torpedo the MA's attempt on Torch.

NervousEnergy wrote:Rosak would be a good call too, though, and wouldn't necessarily be a 'lost' alpha... the MA would be positively ecstatic with his contributions to the Maya sector independence run. OTOH, he did quite literally torpedo the MA's attempt on Torch.

But how better to boost the bona fides of your sleeper agent than to (pardon the pun) torpedo the strategically worthless "black Flag" operation? Strategically worthless because the MDF can come through Torch's WHJ at any time in much better ships and numbers and surprise Torch's fledgling Nay.

Think about it. Everything he is doing fits with the MAlign plan and the future RF anti-slavery policies. He is the means to coopt the expected enemies and gain some of the GA's tech...

I've thought for a while that there's at least one MAlign mole on Smoking Frog, but Barregos is not all that likely. If he was one of them, then the Operation Janus attempt at a false flag operation seems to be, let's say, poorly conceived. In any case, we've never seen any of the Smoking Frog crew in any action more deadly than flying a desk.

Wouldn't surprise me if he was. I mean, doesn't he just have great timing? Being ready to go independent just when the League gets defeated? Yeah, sure he contributed to saving Torch, but that whole operation was stupid in the first place! Plus if he is with the MAlign he probably isn't simple to directly contact.

But I don't think he's the brilliant deadly one Weber mentioned. I don't remember the governor blowing up a handful of dreadnoughts or anything similar.